We walk for what seems like hours. The tracks give out after a little while, for the floor of the forest is so thick with leaves and twigs that there are no prints to follow. I guess at the way, and we go steadily, but I am more and more afraid that we are wandering lost, perhaps even going round in circles like enchanted knights in a fairy-tale forest. Thinking this, I am hardly surprised when I hear the sound of water and turn towards it and we come to a little stream and a pool. It is almost a fountain, so round and banked with green moss. I have a moment when I think perhaps Melusina will rise from the magical pool to help me, her daughter; but nothing happens so I tie Merry to a tree and wash my face and drink the water, and then I bring her to the stream and she drops her white head and sucks up the water quietly, and drinks deep.

The trees have made a little glade around the stream and a beam of sunlight comes through the thick canopy of leaves. Still holding Merry’s reins, I sit down in the sunshine to rest for a few minutes. In a moment, I think, I will get up and we will put the sun on our left and walk steadily; that will take us north and must take us, surely, to the Paris road where they will, surely, be looking for me. I am so tired, and the sun is so warm, that I lean back against a tree trunk, and close my eyes. In minutes I am fast asleep.

* * *

The knight left his horse behind with his comrades, and followed her tracks on foot through the forest, a burning torch held before him, calling her name; calling her name over and over. The forest was unearthly at night; once he caught a glimpse of bright dark eyes and stepped back with an oath and then saw the pale rump of a deer slide away into the shadows. As the moon came up he thought he would see better without the torch, doused it on the ground in the thick leaf mould, and went on, straining his eyes in the silvery half-light. Bushes and trees loomed up at him, darker in the gloom, and without the yellow torchlight he felt he did not want to shout out loudly for her, but instead walked in silence, looking around him all the time, a fear gripping at his heart that he had failed to teach her how to ride, that he had failed to train the horse, that he had failed to tell her what to do in just these circumstances, that he had failed to predict that such a thing might happen: that he had utterly and comprehensively failed her.

At this thougt, so awful to him since he had sworn privately that he would serve and protect her to death, he stopped still and put his hand to a tree trunk to support himself, and bowed his head in shame. She was his lady, he was her knight, and at this, the very first test, he had failed; and now she was somewhere lost in the darkness and he could not find her.